


Like It Was Yesterday

by nomelon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Amnesiac Sam, F/M, Unreliable Narrator, girl!Dean, i can't write any more tags without spoiling my stupid story, you'll just have to go with me on this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1556699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomelon/pseuds/nomelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam can't remember a time when Dean wasn't there. Dean is always with him. Sam's whole life, there's never been anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like It Was Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Strange fic. Twist in the tail. Or in the telling, I guess.

Sam can't remember a time when Dean wasn't there. Dean is always with him. Sam's whole life, there's never been anyone else.

These days, Dean wears her hair long and golden around her shoulders. She's tiny when she walks at his side and nobody ever thinks they're related. She never seems to mind, though. She just smiles politely as she turns down kings time after time in the crappy motels they stop at, insisting on two queens because, she says, Sam is a sweaty blanket-hog and they're far too old to be sharing.

Sam doesn't mind. Whatever Dean wants is fine with him. He trusts her to take care of things.

Sam's job is locking up the car and carrying the bags, salting the doors and windows of wherever they end up staying, etching tiny protective symbols in each corner of the room and a demon's trap in chalk just inside the door. He takes pride in it; his hands moving easily, the process an old, ingrained habit. 

These are things he remembers. He's glad that Dean's always there with him, because there are plenty of other things that he forgets.

She cries at night sometimes and Sam's never entirely sure why. 

She's good to him. She knows how he takes his coffee, knows that he prefers salad instead of fries, and likes ketchup on his burger but hates those big beefy slices of tomato. She knows that he likes to ride shotgun and watch the world go by with the wind in his hair, but she sometimes forgets the important things. Sometimes it's like she's never known. She forgets what TV shows they used to watch together as kids, forgets the songs she sang to him to get him to go to sleep, forgets little things like motel rooms they stayed in when their Dad was off hunting, forgets that time they jumped off the roof wearing superhero costumes, kids they knew at school, Bobby sneaking them off for an afternoon at the fair instead of target practice, or stories Pastor Jim used to tell them. He thinks maybe Dean has more important things to worry about and she can't spend all day living in the past like he does. Sometimes he'll try and catch her out, just to see what she remembers, but she's tricky. She always asks the right questions so it ends up that he's the one telling her stories about when they were younger, so clear in his mind it's like yesterday.

She's testing him, he thinks. It's exactly like Dean to come at him this way, making him exercise his brain like a muscle, going over the same things again and again, hoping that the black hole of the past couple of years will miraculously close over, restoring all that missing time to him. It hasn't happened yet, but Sam doesn't mind trying, because it's what Dean wants.

She likes the happy stories, always wanting to hear about what they did when they were kids, when it was just the two of them, finding each other in the crowded hallways of all those different schools scattered far and wide across the country. She smiles when he tells her about the whispered late night conversations across the inky blackness of all those bedrooms, or curling up around each other in the backseat of the Impala, the rhythm of the road rocking them to sleep. She gets Sam to tell his stories over and over and never gets tired of them. She becomes wistful when Sam mentions a mother he doesn't remember, but when he talks about their dad she gets that faraway look in her eyes like she doesn't want to hear it, like she's bitter in a way Sam can never understand.

He thinks it's because she was always the favourite, even though she could never see it. Dean can tell him otherwise until she's blue in the face, but Sam knows it's true. He knows his father loved him, looked out for him, but Dean was the one their dad connected with. Dean was the one who listened, who knew how the world really worked, while Sam fought against it as hard as he knew how. Sam always did have to learn his lessons the hard way. But Dean will never buy it. Her inferiority complex has always walked hand in hand with a self-sacrificial streak that borders on serious masochism, but that's just another one of those things that they never talk about. 

Sam's not stupid. He knows how to pick his battles.

She'll listen while Sam talks. She'll nod along like there's music playing, tapping out a heartbeat on the wheel if he stutters over the bad times. If his head starts to ache and he's straining to dredge up a memory, rubbing at his temples and forgetting about the eye patch just like always, the elastic pulling against his skin and messing up his hair, she'll bump his knee with the back of her hand.

"Check it out, Sam," she'll say, nodding at a faded billboard. "Second largest ball of twine in the continental US. You wanna stretch your legs?"

Sharing new things with Dean is always good. Sam will nod and smile and follows her lead, the bad memories trailing out the car window like wisps of black smoke.

Sam falls asleep and dreams of freckled skin and broad shoulders and blood; a deep voice screaming his name. He dreams of day and night tumbling after each other but never touching, a jagged red line slashing right down the middle. He dreams that the centre of his world was stolen, bloodied and burned, his foundations shaken, leaving him gasping for air, lonely and alone. He dreams of a black hole sucking him down and down and down, a black hole where one couldn't possibly exist, in the middle of a field, all around peace and calm, with just him at ground zero, falling, losing his mind. He dreams of spread black wings blotting out the sun, shattering glass and a wretched howling so loud and so awful his head screams with it.

He dreams of a voice calling him Sammy, colouring it with a low chuckle and countless dirty jokes.

Somebody's hurting so badly, but there's nothing for Sam to grab hold of when he reaches out.

_\--the last thing I do, I'm gonna save you._

When he wakes up, he wants to tell Dean about it, but he can never remember his dreams. They fade so quickly. He wants to grab tight and never, ever let go, but it's like trying to hold on to fistfuls of water.

Sometimes when he wakes up in the night after the dreams, Sam crawls into bed behind Dean. Nights like that he pushes his nose into her hair and lets his stomach kiss the small of her back with every breath he takes. If he's very careful, she doesn't wake all the way up and she'll burrow into his arms. She'll murmur his name in her sleep, like she's halfway to waking. She smiles a little sometimes, turns in his arms and bumps her nose off his collarbone, murmuring her own name against his skin. It makes him smile to hear their names like that, a soft little two-step that speaks to him of long days and longer nights with Dean always at his side, slotted in like she belongs there.

Most times, Dean does wake up. She's never angry, but she always lies very still, her fingertips on his jaw, her eyes black in the darkness, and she tells Sam to go back to his own bed.

Most times, Sam goes.

 

\---

 

She drives them to the middle of nowhere, parks the car and just sits, listening to the engine ticking over, an irregular little backbeat to the birdsong Sam can hear through the open window. Sam's about to ask her what they're doing there when she gets out of the car and leaves him sitting there alone. He stretches out his shoulders as he watches her, listening to the crack of his bones sliding together.

She walks with purpose, like she knows where she's going, though Sam can't see a thing out here but a dirt road, gnarled trees, and knee-high grass studded with wildflowers. He rests his elbow on the open window of the Impala, the metal sun-warmed under his skin. He wants to call out and ask her why they're there, but something stops him. She gets like this sometimes, quiet and focused on something Sam can't see and doesn't understand. If she wants to tell him, she will.

Her steps are exaggerated, lifting her feet high in the long grass, her head lowered, arms outstretched to keep her footing. She stops some distance out from the car. She just stands there, and Sam doesn't have a clue what this is. He gets out of the car, closes the door carefully -- Dean's not above pitching a hissy fit if he slams the doors too hard -- and walks out to her.

He stands at her side and looks down at their feet. There's a large, burned out patch in the grass: rained out ashes, blackened wood, charred glass and melted plastic. It looks old, though. Sam figures it happened maybe a year or three back. The grass is growing back; new life shooting through the ashes.

"What are we looking at here?" he asks.

"Old news," she says, quiet as a whisper, her voice carefully blank.

He touches her elbow, but she pulls away from him. Sam bites on his lip and folds his arms as tight as he can across his chest.

Dean is silent until they're an entire state away, the Impala running on fumes before she finally pulls into a gas station. She buys him a bottle of water and throws a candy bar at his head, and Sam's grateful because his stomach's been rumbling for the last twenty miles or so, but it's her smile -- that sweet one, just for him, letting him know everything's okay -- that lets him breathe again.

 

\---

 

They're in Milwaukee, eating foot-long subs at the side of the road. Dean keeps stealing his meatballs and trying to pass off her pickles in return. She's eating tuna, though Sam could have sworn she couldn't stand the stuff. She's been making noises about trying to find Shotz Brewery, grinning every time she interrupts her story with obscene cola burps that Sam tries and succeeds to better, making them both laugh.

The traffic is thin on the ground, and they have nowhere in particular they need to be. Sam closes his eyes and lifts his face to the sun.

"Hey, Dean," he says with a smile. "Remember that time when you were..." He concentrates; the memory flickering and wavering on the back of his eyelids, sunspots dancing red on black.

"Like it was yesterday, Sam," she says, and he can hear her straight face, but he's not stupid. He knows when she's yanking his chain.

He shields the sun from his eyes to flash her a grin, but it melts into a frown of concentration, the memory tickling at him, elusive, dancing away from him, then back again when the music changes. Round and round, a smile on his face, but dark and not really him, like he was playing a part in a play. His hand on the small of her back, supporting her weight, guiding her where he wanted her. Bending her back like they were... 

"Dancing. I think we were dancing."

"Dancing?" She snorts with laughter, crumpling the remains of her sandwich up in the wrapping paper. "Me and you? You sure 'bout that one, Sammy?"

"No," he admits. "We were in a bar. You and me in the middle of the floor. Just us. I think..." The grin makes a reappearance. "I think I was singing to you. Making up songs. Any of this sounding familiar?"

"No, Sam," she says, humour gone, staring off at the horizon. "Not ringing a bell."

"Are you sure? It was like a kid's song, I think. Something about my daddy and your daddy or... I don't know. And there was--"

"I said no," she snaps, cutting him off, and Sam's not dumb. He's not. He gets that she's lying, but it's Dean, and she wouldn't do that unless there was a damn good reason for it. An old wrinkle of frustration runs down his spine, but he shrugs it off. It's not important, and the memory is already fading.

Dean drives for another couple of hours, pushing over the county line before hunger makes them pull into a diner. Dean orders for them and doesn't say a word when Sam steals her fries. The waitress looks tired, but she smiles as she cracks her gum and asks if they want anything for dessert. Dean's shaking her head, but Sam blurts out. "Pie. Two slices of pie. Whatever's good."

"Pie," he says to Dean as the waitress walks away, slowly stirring sugar into his coffee, Dean watching him closely. "You wanted pie. We'd stopped, and you were waiting in the car. You wanted pie."

"Yeah," she says, staring out the window. "Jesus, I always had such a hard-on for pie."

"Blueberry," Sam says, feeling pretty certain.

Dean shakes her head. "Cherry. With vanilla ice cream."

Sam can't remember the last time Dean ordered pie.

 

\---

 

He's hot. He's hot and he's burning. There are flames dancing everywhere in this scorched, burnt-out pit of a place. Sam is ten feet tall, his boots crunching on old brittle bones and broken glass as he walks ever-forward, full of purpose. He's not afraid, although god knows he should be, because he's not supposed to be here. He slipped through the cracks because nobody thought he'd come this far. Nobody believed that he'd be strong enough or that he'd figure out how.

There's a man with him. A man Sam knows better than he knows himself. A man who Sam loves, loves without end, and he's the reason Sam came to this place. Sam's paid his dues a thousand times over. He's going to do what he came here for, he's going to turn around and walk back out of this place with this man at his side, and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do to stop him.

The man isn't even looking at him. He's just standing there, looking out over the black wasteland. Sam can't see his face, just the edge of his jaw, the very tip of his nose, the curve of his cheekbone, but it's all as familiar as breathing. Sam gets close enough to touch, and he doesn't hesitate. He just reaches out his hand.

Sam jolts upright, blinking, one hand splayed on the seat beside him, the other gripping the door handle, his heart hammering in his chest. He's sticking to the vinyl seat anywhere his bare skin is touching it; the back of his shirt and jeans are damp and plastered to him.

"Hey, buddy," Dean says, frowning into the glaring sun. "You know you talk in your sleep."

"I do?" Sam asks, rubbing at his eyes. He forgets about the patch, just like always, and the elastic pulls sharply at his skin.

"When you're not drooling and pawing at your crotch you do."

Sam bats her shoulder with the back of his hand, a good-natured thing that makes her roll her eyes. She nods at a rest stop sign that tells them there's coffee and junk food available half a mile ahead.

"You hungry?"

Sam shifts in his seat, working the kinks out of his spine, and flips down the sun visor to make sure his hair isn't caught up in the elastic again and sticking straight up in the air. "Always," he says, and she changes lanes, heading for the exit.

 

\---

 

Sam doesn't recognise all of what he sees in the mirror. Dean makes him wear the patch all the time, only letting him take it off when he's sleeping or in the shower, but sometimes he peeks. She tells him that people wouldn't understand, and that people are afraid of what they don't understand. 

He thinks maybe it hurts her to see. That it hurts her more than it hurts him because she's the one who remembers.

He watches the black fog swirl in his bad eye and he blinks at his reflection.

He imagines an amused voice, deep and friendly, so vivid it's like a memory -- although Sam knows that memories are fleeting and not to be trusted -- telling him the patch looks cool, that he had nothing to worry about, that it made him look like a badass, or even better, like a pirate. That he shouldn't be ashamed.

_Loud and proud, Sammy. You've earned your scars._

But Dean asked him to wear the patch, so he does.

 

\---

 

Sam remembers little things sometimes. Like this isn't the life they wanted, but they ended up here by default, part of the penance of being born a Winchester. He went to school in a hundred different places where the faces kept changing but most everything else stayed just the same. He studied hard, books balanced on his knees in the back of the Impala, joining study groups when he could, tuning out the sound of the TV in the ever-changing motel room they called home. He earned his place in that world and fought hard to keep it. He can't remember the names of the classes, but he knows he aced most of them.

Then there was a fire and somebody died, but Dean saved his life and Sam's been running ever since. Even if they're not hunting these days, not really, not like they used to, they're still running. 

Sam's just not sure anymore what they're running from.

 

\---

 

Dean's lying on her bed, her hair damp and wavy from the shower. She's barefoot, swamped in one of his t-shirts, watching some inexplicable daytime soap set in a hospital where the characters give long expositional soliloquies anytime they're left alone, and everybody seems to be sleeping with everyone else. Sam can't keep track of all the characters. They all look exactly the same.

Dean has been watching him out of the corner of her eye all afternoon. Sam's been pretending not to notice. He's pretty good at not letting people see what he notices, but he doesn't always fool Dean.

"Hey. You love me?"

That gets all of Sam's attention. He's a little surprised that Dean would just come right out and ask in the middle of the day. Usually it's only after she's had too much to drink or when Sam is dead tired and half asleep so she knows she can get away with asking him things without much scrutiny.

"Yeah. You know I do."

"Say it," she says, and it's so out of the blue that Sam wonders if it's a game.

"I love you."

"No. All of it. Say it all."

Dean has a thing about names. It took Sam forever to figure it out, because she refuses to talk about it, refuses to even admit it's a thing. Sam had nothing but endless guesswork because he couldn't ask and Dean wouldn't tell, but there's something about names, something about Dean's name, that's important to her.

"I love you, Dean."

"Yeah," she says with an uneven little nod that Sam can't read at all, like she's summing him up, like she's looking right through him, like she's somewhere else entirely. "I get that."

 

\---

 

He strokes over her tattoo sometimes. When she's asleep, or when she's working on the laptop and he's leaning over her shoulder, watching, waiting for her to add up the pieces of whatever hunt they're working on. Dean's strict about not taking on difficult hunts. These days it's salt and burns only. She doesn't like it when they have to go up against anything more challenging than a disgruntled ghost. It's one of her rules.

He'll rest his hand on her shoulder and brush over and over her tattoo with his thumb, the faint lines of inked scars an endless fascination to him.

Her tattoo matches his, the design of it at least, but it's too small. It should be bigger. He's always telling her that she should have got hers done bigger. Their tattoos should be identical. It should be on her chest, just below her collarbone, exactly where his lies. She always pulls a face and says the same thing.

"I may have got inked to stop from being possessed, but that doesn't mean I can't try and make it look good."

It seems important, though Sam knows it isn't. What's important is that they're protected.

 

\---

 

When it's cold at night and the temperature drops below freezing, Sam's ribs ache like his chest is too tight and he's brittle inside in all the places where he should be strong. On nights like that, Dean doesn't say anything when he huddles under the covers with her. She just pulls the blankets to his chin and pets his hair while he tries to sleep.

 

\---

 

He doesn't carry the money. Dean usually takes care of it. She carries his wallet for him; tells him it's safer that way. But he needs it to pay for the gas, plus he's thirsty and he wants something icy cold and sweet. Coke will do; root beer if they have it.

She's out back of the gas station, gone in search of the little girls' room, but when he rounds the corner, she's talking on a cell phone. She's far enough away that she doesn't hear him, too wrapped up in her phone call, and Sam doesn't know why, but he tucks himself behind a stack of empty RC Cola crates and watches her.

Sam can't remember ever seeing her actually using her phone before. Not her personal one. It's always just been there in the glove compartment, silent but always charged up. He can't think who she'd be calling. He didn't think that they had anyone to call.

"--getting worse.

"No. No, I've tried that. Of course I've tried that.

"I did. I _did_ , but it's not that simple.

"No, goddamn it, I won't bring him in. After everything that happened he doesn't deserve--

"Fuck that. This is what Dean said would happen. This is what he wanted at the end. He told me this was the only way, and I believe him. He gave up everything to--"

Breathing gets harder suddenly. Sam's lungs won't work properly. His bad eye is itching and there's a buzzing in his ears like a cloud of mosquitoes inside his head.

"Damn it, Bobby, it's safer this way and you know it. You may not like it, but we did what we did for a reason. We all agreed. No take-backs. If this is the only way to hold Sam in check, then this is our game plan. You really want him figuring out what we did to him? What we had to do to stop him? What happened to Dean? You really want him to find out what he's capable of?"

All the air is sucked out of the world. Sam's shoulder hits the side of the building hard as his knees betray him and he sits right down in the dirt.

"No. I can't. I can't. Dean's gone and I never even got to-- He's _gone_ , Bobby. Now there's nothing left. Sam doesn't remember any of it. I'm all he has. He needs me. He needs this stupid lie that I'm Dean and I've got nothing else and no one else so fuck you if you can't understand that I'm going to just live this life, okay?"

Her voice hitches and it sounds like tears. She's usually so quiet when she cries that the sound catches like a hook in the centre of Sam's chest and tugs. He presses his cheek to the rough brick of the building and watches her through a gap in the crates, wondering why he doesn't understand, wondering for the first time if his not being able to remember isn't just a quirk of nature, if it's something bad that happened. 

If it's something bad that was done to him. 

She's been lying to him. Big, awful, life-changing, foundation-shaking lies. It hurts. It hurts more than Sam thought possible, and he has to spit in the dirt, bile rising in his throat.

"How's my mom?" she says into the phone, her voice a scratchy whisper, barely holding it together. "Yeah," she says, so quiet Sam can hardly hear her. "No. No, don't tell her you spoke to me. It's better if you don't. Listen, it's... it's real good to hear your voice, Bobby."

She's shaking her head, tapping her knuckles against the metal edge to an old billboard for Lays potato chips, faded yellow behind its scratched plastic window. She shifts her weight and squints at the horizon, the way she does when she wants out, away, gone. The way she looks at Sam sometimes when he's talking about the past, when it's something that doesn't feel happy, when he's trying his hardest to remember something just outside of his grasp.

But Jo never leaves him. That's her name. He knows her. Jo's always with him. She's been with him ever since they took his brother Dean.

She loved Dean so much. Sam had always tried not to notice. He tried not to notice too much about Jo -- after all the shit that went down between them she might have forgiven him but Sam could never forgive himself -- but he'd had to have been a blind man not to notice the way she looked at Dean. Losing him must have ripped her up inside.

Sam gets that. He really, really does. But he was the one that Dean died for. He was the one who set the whole thing in motion and in the end, he was the one who said, "Yes".

"Yeah, Bobby, no, listen, I gotta go," she says, too fast, her words bumping and jostling together. "Yeah. I will. You too," she says, and disconnects the call. She presses the phone to her lips, and just stands there, staring down at the ground.

Sam's gone, already headed back to the car on unsteady legs. He doesn't know if this has happened before. He doesn't know if this is one of the things he can't hold on to. Jo would know. He could ask her, he thinks. He could ask her to remind him. She's so good at that. She always keeps him on the right track. 

By the time she gets back to the car, Sam is busy checking his pockets for his wallet, only remembering that Dean has it, that she always carries his wallet for him -- it's safer that way -- when she holds it out in front of his face.

He smiles, broad and easy, squinting against the reflection of the sun off the corner window of the gas station, and their fingers brush when he takes the wallet. He's going to get something cold to drink. Coke will do; root beer if they have it.

The sun shines down on them, warm and comforting. Sam closes his eyes and shines back.

 

\---

 

Sam is surprised when Dean crawls into his bed that night, tiny and warm as she curls up against his chest.

He murmurs, not quite saying anything at first, sleep sticking the words to his tongue. She doesn't answer. She just burrows in closer, letting him turn and wrap an arm around her waist, his hand spanning the small of her back, holding her close, their bare legs tangled together. 

"Sam?" she says, her nose touching his jaw, her chin a small point of pressure against his shoulder.

He smiles, because she always has trouble asking. "Love you," he says, still only half awake, everything warm and molasses-slow in the dark.

She nods and tips her face up to him, watching him in the light from the window. She threads her fingers through his hair and lets him kiss her, her tears rolling into his mouth, salting his lips.

"I know you do," she whispers back. "Say it all, Sammy. Say the whole thing."

"Dean," he murmurs, frowning a little, not sure why she's hurting, only wanting to make it better. "I love you, Dean." He breathes the words into her mouth, and she takes them into her lungs. 

She closes her eyes and lays her palm over the amulet he's worn next to his heart for as long as he can remember, and she curves her body into his. She does this sometimes, crying in the night, seeking him out for comfort she'll never come right out and ask for, and Sam's never sure why. He can't remember her ever kissing him before, not like this, not sweet and slow and wet, and he's pretty sure they're not supposed to, sure that this isn't a thing that they do, but it lights him up from the inside, making his heart beat hard and fast like it wants to break out of his chest and fly free like a bird.

Sam can't remember a time when Dean wasn't there. Dean is always with him. 

Sam's whole life, there's never been anyone else.


End file.
